If I had a dollar for every time a extra-dimensional portal appeared and gave me powers, I would have two. Which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice. -- Anon Guest
Did you know it kind'a sucks to be able to recognise an extradimensional stick with a human on it[1]? I can tell you for free that it creeps me out every single time. The first time, I was five and thought my kindergarten teacher was a monster. I was always confused that nobody else could see the stick with a person on it.
At least sticks with people on it can sort of tell that they've been spotted. It's how I got my first Gift. It's not ever spelled in small letters, and it's barely a gift. Greeks and wooden horses. Fae and ill-worded wishes. It's that kind of deal. They're studying us, and don't know everything.
The first Gift was to be able to tell the malevolent ones from the benevolent ones. According to my judgement of malevolent and benevolent. Of course, I was five and wanted to know, "which ones the meaners are." So now I can tell which people on a stick are being cruel to other people.
Convincing other people about this has been... troublesome. People don't want to believe that an otherwise friendly and charming "person" is trying to trick them into something that will hurt them. Trying to tell off the person on the stick never works. I always get the other-dimensional telepathic equivalent to, "Dude, you're messing with our data."
Jerks.
I'm pretty sure some experiment rodents think similar thoughts about the scientists that do things to them. The relationship isn't the best, but we work with what we can work with, I guess. The point is, my friends know that I'm right and the rest of the world takes their chances.
They can get their data from people who ignore the warnings.
What about the second Gift? Well... that's one I actually asked for. Sort of. Wishes to fairies. Be careful how you phrase things. You don't remember what happens. Nobody else does. Well. Nobody who isn't a person on a stick.
If I was a superhero, my codename would be Undo. I can backtrack to the cause of the problem within my lifetime and alter the chain of events according to my natural abilities. My presence is not remembered, but the alteration remains. The reason why you don't remember so many preventable disasters is that I've been doing my utmost to Undo them all.
There's some things I can't stop. Some people I can't convince. Right-wing people in charge tend to be the kinds of men who do not listen to women no matter what proof they have on the smartphone that doesn't exist yet. The only way I can even try to convince them is show them the jokes that will be made at their expense and even then... yeah. They do what they want anyway.
Some people would much rather chew off their own legs at the hip than appear to be weak for five seconds. And no, before you ask, I can't Undo toxic masculinity. That ship sailed like a century before I was born.
But I can for sure verify that it is not lizard people or ancient aliens or a secret society causing all your troubles. It is one hundred percent stupid rich people trying their hardest to get richer like it's some kind of game with cheat codes. And by the way, they're not doing it to you out of some kind of malice or agenda. They literally don't care about you.
What I can do is try to protect people who could be important for the future. So the next time you have a narrow scrape or make a decision that you can't quite remember the logic for? You're welcome.
Try not to do any stupid shit, okay? I don't always get the memo about just how important you are. Or how you are important.
[1] Nightmare fuel graciously supplied by Neil Gaiman in a Tumblr post about puzzle-solving bees. I shit you not. Plus some added nonsense from yours truly.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / PiLens]
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